


Messages in A Bottle (like ships onto the sea)

by cerulean_sin (am_bellanoire)



Series: The Captain and Her First Mate (Huma One-Shots) [4]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mild Angst, Post-Descendants 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 18:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/am_bellanoire/pseuds/cerulean_sin
Summary: “What's all this?” She asked, rising to her feet and slowly approaching him. There was nothing accusatory in her tone. She noted the way he gripped his hook tighter, giving away his unease.“It's nothing.”Uma arched a brow, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and shook her head. She didn't appreciate his tone but she would give him a little leeway given how uncomfortable he looked. His eyes were already starting to pink, a warning that this was going to get ugly quickly unless she handled thisdiplomatically. Still, her curiosity overpowered every other emotion. Well almost. She felt horribly guilty and that made her tone sharper than she intended.“Don't look like nothing to me.”





	Messages in A Bottle (like ships onto the sea)

**Author's Note:**

> Something of a sequel to 'O Captain, My Captain'. Happy Reading!

_'Uma missed her pirates, she missed their camaraderie, she missed Harry's smart mouth and his sly banter...'_

_'...she couldn't imagine Harry without his crew. He was practically miserable without his captain, Uma.'_ – Melissa De La Cruz

* * *

Uma was walking on the beach at sunset when she found the first one. A sea green glass bottle crusted over in sand as if had been washed ashore by the tide. Curiosity piqued, she grabbed it and held it up to the light. There inside was a yellowed scroll. Messages in a bottle weren't uncommon when it came to the sea. She had no idea Auradon still held to these traditions so to speak and felt quite excited to see what the note read. 

Until of course she plucked the rolled up paper from the neck of the container and unfurled it. Her breath caught in her throat and she almost dropped the note into the sand. She would recognize that scrawl from anywhere as she had been the first to see it when she'd taught Harry how to write. 

_It's been a few days. Did you get lost? I always knew I was the better navigator of the two of us._

It was dated over a year ago, two nights following the cotillion and her failed plan to bring the barrier between Auradon and the Isle down.

Before she could allow herself to dwell on the words, before her emotions could even process how they should feel, she spotted another bottle in the sand and gravitated toward it. And there was another, and another, and more. It was as if they had all washed up together in a bunch and she knew automatically that it hadn't been by accident. It had been intentional for her to find them. And as she dug each and every one up, even taking a few more moments to look for any more, finally satisfied that she'd found them all, Uma took a deep breath to compose herself. 

The sea witch collapsed into the sand with a throaty sound and grabbed the next bottle closest to her. Turning it upside down, she gripped the tattered parchment within between her nails and dragged it out. 

_Have you eloped with King Ben, then? Why didn't I get an invite to the wedding?_

And the next. 

_Two months now. Did you forget the plan?_

_Captains go down with the ship, they don't abandon their crew._

_I almost had to hurt Bonny and Jonas today. One more word out of them and I'll feed them to the sharks. They miss you too._

She almost hesitated before grabbing the next but steeled her resolve. She couldn't be a coward, not now. 

_I'm getting tired of Gil walking around like a lost puppy. Where are you? _

_Come home. Your crew needs you._

_I guess I'm captain now. We will burn Bore-a-don to the ground to find you._

Uma only realized she was holding her breath when the pressure in her chest became unbearable, forcing her to cough and breathe, or suffocate. This was rapidly becoming too much but she forced herself to reach for the three remaining bottles. 

_If you didn't need me anymore, all you had to do was say so. I was raised on ships you know. I could run my own crew better than you._

_I'd trade my hook to get you back._

The last one very nearly broke her, her heart seizing so tightly behind her ribs she was sure the thing might actually stop beating. But through the pain, through the tears she very much wanted to shed and refused, the sea witch forced herself to continue. 

_Uma. I don't know what to do anymore. I need you, darling. Come back to me. _

Years of fighting and Uma could feel the air shift behind her. With the last scroll in hand, she looked over her shoulder to see Harry standing there. An odd look on his face that she couldn't quite read. He didn't look angry but he didn't look happy. He looked almost lost. As if he wasn't sure what to say or think in the moment which was an out of place expression coming from her first mate. 

“What's all this?” She asked, rising to her feet and slowly approaching him. There was nothing accusatory in her voice. She noted the way he gripped his hook tighter, giving away his unease. 

“It's nothing.”

Uma arched a brow, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and shook her head. She didn't appreciate his tone but she would give him a little leeway given how uncomfortable he looked. His eyes were already starting to pink, a warning that this was going to get ugly quickly unless she handled this _diplomatically_. Still, her curiosity overpowered every other emotion. Well almost. She felt horribly guilty and that made her words sharper than she intended. 

“Don't look like nothing to me.”

“Yer back now. It doesn't matter,” Harry ground out between clenched teeth. He was reaching his limit fast, every fiber in his being pulled taut like the strings of a fiddle. He was losing it and he knew it. His hook verily _itched_ to claw into someone. But the only someone before him was his captain. And he couldn't hook _her_. He'd pitch himself into the sea first. 

“These bottles didn't just wash up on the beach, Harry. You wanted me to find them and I did.”

She wasn't _getting_ it. And he was done with trying. He turned his back on her and made to walk away. Right. She'd found the bottles. That had been his intention. He'd collected each and every one and placed them on that beach just for her to find. He'd written each note, painstakingly by candlelight even though there hadn't been a way for them to reach her over the barrier. Because she needed to know what her absence had done to him. He wasn't like Gil. He wasn't going to just out and say it. That he had been miserable without her. Crazed. No one had been able to be within a foot of him in the time she had been gone. But now she knew and that was that. It wasn't the Isle's way to speak on _feelings_. That was weakness. And it didn't matter that they were in Auradon now. He would always be a pirate from the Isle and so would she. She could drop the little facade. Some things didn't need to be discussed. He didn't want to. He wasn't going to. He was going to walk away before he did something that got him thrown back into that hell hole. 

Uma grabbed him by the back of his vest and yanked him towards her. An impressive feat because not only was he taller but he outweighed her. The again, she had always been small but mighty. Her expression was tight, her tone demanding. 

“Talk to me.”

A direct order that he couldn't just _ignore_. She was the captain, he was the first mate. He knew this. But she'd picked the wrong time to put him in his place. Harry snapped. He shrugged himself out of her grip and rounded on her. His eyes blazed crimson and he stalked toward her, fully invading her personal space. 

“Fine, ye want to talk? We'll talk. Ye left me.”

Had the sea witch been easier to intimidate, she might have cowered from the feral look in his eyes. She might have flinched away from the cold metal of the hook he lightly dragged along her cheek. Just the same, she took an involuntary step back, more shocked than anything. But then she planted her heels and lifted her chin defiantly, nostrils flared, meeting his tumultuous gaze head on. He couldn't hurt even if he tried and she knew that. He was no threat. Even still, whatever she read in his tone made her feel _small_, as if for the first time she had made a mistake. As if she had wounded him. And it made her squirm despite the hard exterior she tried to pull off, her teeth nibbling at her lower lip. Even her voice lacked the strength it usually possessed. The words coming out as if she had learned them by rote, soft as a molted crab. 

“I was looking for a hole in the barri -”

“Oh spare me _Uma_,” he cut her off with a wicked sneer, his brogue thick and dark, “I know what ye were doing, ye told us already. But ye still left _me_. Do ye know what it felt like to not know where ye were or if ye were coming back or if ye were hurt, if ye had died?” His voice broke on the last word, the seething anger giving way to a much deeper emotion that was compiled of shattered hearts and briny tears and cold nights spent in the captain's quarters of a ship that wasn't a ship at all without his turquoise haired captain. But Harry steeled his spine and tightened his jaw to go on, “Do ye have any idea how bloody dead I felt inside every day on that ship waiting for ye to come back. Waiting for ye to come home?”

She was breathing too quickly. Her chest rising and falling beneath the confines of her vest as if it were trying to escape. Her eyelids prickled, the heat making her teeth snap together. She wasn't going to _cry_, Her body, her emotions would never betray her like that. And she almost applauded her vocal chords for doing their job around the hard lump that had formed in her throat. 

“I did it for us Harry, so we could be _free_. You know that.”

“Yeah, well just because I know something to be true doesn't mean I have to accept it. I got a few screws loose don't I, _darling_?”

The venom in the way he growled the usually soft spoken term of endearment released the sea witch out of whatever emotional whirlpool she was swirling around in. Her dark eyes flashed and her hands balled into fists at her sides. Part of her wanted to punch him square in the jaw. The other part, well the other part wanted to hug him. But she wasn't going to even entertain _that_ notion. 

“If you're expecting an apology, you know you ain't getting one.”

“An apology?” Harry spat in disgust, “Do I look like some pretty Auradon lad to ye? Like I'm gonna even accept your 'sorry'? Swear me an oath.”

“I gave you one, both you and Gil, didn't I?” Uma volleyed back, crossing her arms over her chest, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“I want one of me own.”

“Selfish.”

“Say it.”

She exhaled harshly through her nose and rolled her eyes, thoroughly exasperated, but found herself unable to deny his request. “I won't leave you again. Happy?”

“No.”

Neither of them could quite hide their smiles at the childishly petulant tone. It seemed the storm between them had passed at last.

“Brat.”

She watched the fight slowly leave him. The anger. First his eyes bled back to their forget-me-not blue. Then the tension faded from his body. He looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen him and while it was in the natiure of an Isle kid to exploit such weakness in another, Uma found that she felt just as weak before him, her legs reduced near to jelly as he suddenly embraced her, pulling her flush against him and holding her so tightly she almost couldn't catch her breath. So tightly it was as if he feared something might try to snatch her away from him.

“I missed ye, captain,” he breathed into her ear. 

“I know,” and her tone was just as soft. 

“I can't be without ye.”

“I know. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.” With her face hidden in the crook of his neck, Uma allowed her emotions the upper hand. Because what she was saying struck deep and true. The annoyingly hot prickle of tears finally gave way and the salty streaks ran down her cheeks unbidden, making her voice raspy and broken, “I wanted to rip my own heart outta my chest, it hurt so bad. I missed Gil and Bonny and Jonas and Gonzo and Desiree and the rest of them but I missed you more than I've ever missed anything in my life.”

Harry pulled back a bit out of the hug and she tried to turn her face from his so that he wouldn't see the evidence of her weakness. But he, he was having none of it. With his free hand, he gripped her by the chin and fixed her obsidian gaze back to his. He extended his hook with his other hand and she slipped a finger into the curve. It was their _thing_. Something that only belonged to them. Something that saw beyond the ebb and flow of their emotions, their anger. Something that reconnected them. 

He nuzzled his face into her hair. Where there had been braids before, it was unbound and flowed, darker than he remembered. More teal than turquoise. But it was hers. It still felt like hers. Felt like home. Even if the scent was unfamiliar. 

“Ye smell different,” he murmured, his voice muffled by the sea of teal, “Sweet like.”

She laughed, a rich, happy sound that he could never get enough of, “That would be all the coconut. The oil works wonders on hair.”

“I love coconuts.”

“Wait til you taste 'em.”

Harry pressed an open mouthed kissed to her cheek marveling in the sweetness that coated his tongue, relishing the way her eyes widened and she gasped. It was the most delicate sound he had ever heared her make. 

“I don't have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Now we all know Gil was the one who addressed the elephant in the room in D3 regarding Uma's time away and Harry let it rock because as Evie said they had 'bigger fish to fry' saving Auradon, besting Audrey. waking her up, returning to the Isle, the barrier coming down, etc. But I imagine Harry had a few words for his captain when it was all said and done. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback would be much appreciated.


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